


The Cabin

by WetSammyWinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Horror, M/M, Possession, Post-Purgatory Dean Winchester, Pre-Trials, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 21:44:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21083567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WetSammyWinchester/pseuds/WetSammyWinchester
Summary: You can box things up and bury them but sometimes they worm their way out.





	The Cabin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2019 SPN Eldritch Bang. I was so lucky to partner with artist m-stoltz who created these beautiful pieces that look like they are pulled right from a folklore book. The colors and style are gorgeous so please give all the love on the [art masterpost on tumblr](https://m-stoltz.tumblr.com/post/188430443965/art-master-post-for-this-years-spn-eldritch-bang#notes).
> 
> Thanks to my betas, nigeltde and monicawoe, for all their help! Shout-out to my discord writing pals who gave a lot of support as I tried my hand at horror for the first time.

~~~

_The shoreline of the lake stretches like a curve of bleached bone in the moonlight. As he walks, the hem of his jeans hangs damp against his bare ankles and small pebbles poke the soles of his feet. His toes are cold, so cold, from where the water laps at them. He looks back over his shoulder at the dark cabin where the front door hangs open and Dean sleeps warm in their bed. _

_Sam’s mind wants to go back inside but his body can’t. Not with the voice calling him._

_His fingers flex around the shovel that dangles at his side and his eyes gleam amber in the dark as he heads into the woods. _

~~~

Dean drops his bag at the base of the cabin’s front steps. “This is it? Not bad for a bunch of pencil-necked geeks.”

Sam joins him and considers the cabin. Built from logs and flat river stone that climbs up the chimney, it was a lakeside summer getaway in the 1920s for a well-to-do family that made their money in lumber. According to the ledger Sam found, the property was donated to the Men of Letters after the husband and wife lost their only child.

“Grab your bag and we’ll come back for the groceries. Got the feeling that this place is gonna be full of dust and mice.” Dean makes a face but steps quickly up the stairs. When he notices that Sam isn’t next to him, he turns to find him still standing by the car. Sam’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath as he looks out at the view and Dean follows his gaze. The lakefront is no more than fifty yards from the driveway and the water shines dark blue in the sun. Big enough for canoeing, the lake is placid and probably well-stocked with fish.

_This could work_, Dean thinks. 

Back at the Bunker, Sam seemed nervous when he showed Dean the list of properties and suggested they check one out. After a couple of weeks of exploring the green-tiled halls and dark storerooms, Dean was ready to get on the road again.

As they drove through Minnesota, Dean remembers the furthest north they’d been on a hunt. It wasn’t often they crossed the border into Canada but there was a Black Dog outside Winnipeg with Dad when Dean was fourteen. He spent the whole trip worried about leaving Sam with Bobby and not getting himself killed out in the snow.

The border guard at the Fort Francis crossing gave their fake passports the quickest of glances and a friendly tip of his hat, and then they were over the border. The only difference between roads in Western Ontario and Minnesota was how few cars they passed the further north they went.

“Why do you think the Men of Letters own these places?” Sam asked idly, studying the ledger page as they crossed into Ontario. “Maybe local safe houses?” 

“Pretty far out for a safe house. Maybe these geeks needed a place to loosen their ties and get some R&R for a while?” Dean glanced across the seat at Sam. “If I’m gonna take a vacation, I’d rather be in Canada than someplace like Texas. How could you stand living in that heat?”

Sam gave a tight-lipped smile and tapped the edge of the paper before he looked up. “Thought we weren’t talking about that anymore.”

Dean shrugged and they drove in silence for the next three hours. 

Now, standing in the sunshine with the smell of the lake and the pines surrounding them, Sam’s smile is real. Nice not to worry about vamps or who’s to blame for once, Dean thinks. He glances down at his cell phone briefly. There’s no service out here which is fine with him. No Benny, no Amelia, no weird cases--just him and Sam.

The inside of the cabin isn’t bad considering it’s been forty years since someone stayed there. The furniture is covered with sheets and the two of them take turns shaking off the dust at the side of the house. There are shelves filled with books and an old wood-burning stove in the kitchen. Dean smiles when he finds a rack of finely carved walking sticks by the door and pulls one down to look at a bear’s head on the end of it. 

They don’t talk much as they get to work. Dean sweeps the hardwood floors and shakes out the quilts and sheets he finds in a cupboard while Sam goes outside to gather and chop wood. Within an hour, the bed is made and a fire is stoked and they’re out on the porch enjoying the sunset with a couple of beers.

“How close is the closest neighbor here?” Dean asked.

Sam’s eyebrows pull together. “Maybe five, ten miles?”

Dean laughs before taking another sip. “Excellent.”

~~~

The iron bedposts bang hard against the bottom of the window and the glass rattles in its frame. They don’t stop; the noise and energy satisfy something inside Dean - an itch from his time in Purgatory that he rarely gets to scratch. The little room is hot and smoky. Dean tosses the quilt to the side before he adjusts his grip on the iron rail above Sam’s head. He jerks his cock in deeper and Sam gasps - the first real noise he’s made since they started.

Sam wraps his fingers around Dean’s hipbone, digs his fingers in, bringing Dean closer as if that were possible. Sam’s cock flops and leaks onto his stomach, mixing with the sweat pooled there, and Dean wants to stop to lick the sweat and pre-cum off him but instead spreads his knees and changes the angle again as he continues to slam into Sam. He could come but he wants this to last longer, for Sam to look him in the eyes when it happens.

Sam’s long fingers are wrapped around the bedposts and his eyes closed. Sam’s face is turned away as if he’s focused inward on the sensations. Dean pushes all the way in, then dips to kiss his jaw. The pause startles Sam and he opens his eyes.

“Sam,” Dean whispers, “look at me.” He pushes out and in again and holds the position, which is tough when all he wants is to pound Sam senseless. He waits. Sam blinks his eyes slowly and breathes out. It’s not feeling right. Dean wants to recapture the mindless momentum they had before when Sam’s eyes would go dark and his nails would leave furrows in Dean’s back that would hurt for days.

“Get on top of me,” he says and slaps Sam’s ass.

Dean pulls out and they switch positions, an awkward roll of their bodies, tugging the old comforter between them until Dean is lying flat on his back. Sam swings his leg over to straddle him, and Dean keeps watching Sam’s face while he holds himself still. Sam positions himself, lowering down slowly on Dean’s cock, biting his lip. The Sam from before wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have yanked Dean where he wanted him, giving him bites and kisses on the neck and torso that had to be hidden under their shirts and jackets. This Sam is tentative, setting a rhythm that makes Dean want to grab his hips and crush him down. Instead, he breathes and watches the sweat glisten on Sam’s neck and run down his chest. A terrible thought snakes its way into Dean’s mind. Maybe Sam doesn’t want whatever this is. Maybe he doesn’t want Dean. 

He quickly veers away from it to focus on Sam’s face above him and commits to punch another reaction out of him. He takes hold of Sam’s hips and sets a brutal rhythm, smacking up into him hard, and Sam lets him.

Dean could go all night--one of the upsides of Purgatory, all that adrenaline inside him with no place to go like permanent Viagra--but all good things must come to an end and Sam makes a small noise as Dean comes inside. Dean starts to wrap his hand around Sam’s cock, finish him off too, but Sam brushes him off and takes a hold of himself. The same slow, painful build-up as before and Dean can’t complain even as he softens inside Sam. Sam bites his bottom lip, digging his teeth in, and a minute later he comes in spurts over Dean’s stomach and chest. Sam hangs his head down, his sweaty hair falls in curtains around his face, and Dean reaches up to brush it back. 

“Sorry,” Sam says and starts to climb off but Dean grabs his arm.

“About what?”

“About the mess.”

Sam pulls away and Dean snorts. But his brother is already returning with a towel from the kitchen and tosses it on Dean.

Dean is ready to pass out. Even when it’s not great, sex relaxes him. He lays back on the pillows while Sam pulls on his sweats and grabs two beers from the cooler. Sam tosses one to him before wandering out the door barefoot to sit on the cabin steps. Without any traffic noises or people, it’s quiet, the kind of quiet that lies over things like a heavy blanket. Dean leans his head back and can see the inky black sky out the window. The stars shine clean and white, sprinkled throughout the darkness, brighter than he’s ever seen. 

It’s a funny feeling to have a home. The cabin, like the Bunker, like all the Men of Letter’s properties, is all theirs. They can come and go as they want. Before they were always on their way to somewhere else, onto the next case. Even vacations, when they tried to take them, were always focused on a case and never fully on each other. Maybe it’s time to change that and finding this place could be the first step. 

He glances back through the open door to watch Sam sipping his beer on the steps, looking up at the same stars. They’ve learned not to talk about the last six months. No surprise that they are able to skirt around the things that happened. There’s no excuse for some of it--his texts pretending to be Amelia or how Sam set Martin on Benny. The wounds are still fresh but finally starting to heal over. 

The Bunker helps with that. Dean settled in but Sam seems reluctant and a small part of his mind returns to the idea that Sam has second thoughts about his decision to stick with Dean. If that’s the case, if Sam has doubts, he’ll need to work it out. Dean hovering over him isn’t going to help. It never has since Sam was a kid.

~~~

The sunlight falling across the bed is bright and Dean blinks and rubs his eyes, mole-like after the last few weeks they spent in the Bunker’s darkness. He kicks off the blankets and heads to the bathroom. When he comes back out, Sam is curled up around Dean’s pillow, the blanket and sheets a tangled mess around him. Sweat glistens on Sam’s neck and the space between his eyebrows is pinched together.

“Hey,” he says, shaking Sam by the foot. Sam pulls his leg away. “Time to get up and at ‘em.”

“No,” Sam mumbles. He turns over on his stomach and pulls Dean’s pillow over his head so no part of his body is visible.

“Alright, princess. Not gonna save you any donuts then.”

He throws a couple of new logs on and stokes the fire for cooking as he pulls out an old blue, ceramic coffee pot and filling it with cold water from the tap. As the water heats up, he checks out the bookshelves that line the walls of the cabin. Like the Bunker, they are filled with old books and manuscripts. He runs a finger along the dusty spines, smiling when he sees one on Wendigos and then idly interested in another on Inuit legends. There’s a small cabinet built into the shiny varnished shelves with a key sitting in its lock. Curious, he turns the key and a cabinet door falls open on hinges to form a small writing desk. Inside the cabinet, there are old pens and pots of ink, antiques that might interest Sam. Stashed behind these is a brown leather book that catches his eye. At first, he thinks it’s a hunter journal but the cover has an Aquarian star and its pages are filled with different styles of writing, some small and neat and other more ornate and loopy, reminiscent of a sign-in book at one of those goofy bed and breakfasts that they’re forced to stay at on occasion. He tucks the book under his arm and turns back to fix the coffee.

Sam hasn’t moved so Dean leaves a mug on the nightstand next to him and takes his coffee out to the porch. He relaxes into the wooden swing and lets the smell of pines and lake water wash over him before he cracks open the journal and turns to the first page.

_June 26, 1921_

_We arrived at the cabin, grateful not to be driving any longer. An unforeseen weather system moved in during our last hour on the road and the old Ford took on a lot of rain but the roads hadn’t turned to mud yet. Elias and James followed us in the truck. Both men are efficient with manual labor. They are good men without special abilities to leave them vulnerable which is even more important. _

_The last part of the trip was slow but without incident._

_It is quiet here at the cabin with no neighbors for at least ten miles. Nice to sleep without worry about being discovered. Tomorrow will be a long day._

_~James Davis III, New York chapterhouse_

_June 27, 1921_

_We found a small clearing in the woods and marked the spot with glyphs. I was glad there were three of us to dig as the pit needed to be twelve feet deep and ten feet on the sides. The labor took us through the late afternoon but we were able to finish before dark and enjoy a glass of whiskey on the porch._

_~James Davis III, New York chapterhouse_

_June 28, 1921_

_Summer solstice and today we bury the snake._

The cabin door swings open and Dean looks up. Sam is filling the doorway, his hair a tangled mess as he stretches and scratches at the stubble on his cheek, dark smudges under his eyes.

“You doing alright?” Dean asks. Sam shrugs. “Left you coffee by the bed.”

Sam’s eyebrows climb and he disappears back into the cabin without a word.

Dean takes a deep breath and closes the book. It’s vacation after all.

~~~

They find an old canoe under a tarp around back. Dean talks Sam into carrying it down to the lakeside but can’t convince him to go fishing, so they walk along the shoreline. Dean skips rocks and Sam swats a hand against the outside of his ear in irritation at some bugs. The lake’s glass-like surface sends out ripples from each touch of the stones. Dean stops when he realizes Sam is no longer at his side. He walks back to where Sam is staring at the tree line with narrowed eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Thought I heard something,” Sam replies and they stand together with their hands in their pockets, silently listening for a few minutes.

“Was it big? Like a bear?” Dean says, half-joking. “Should have brought one of those fancy walking sticks to defend us.”

Sam shakes his head and then rubs the bridge of his nose. “Not bears. Buzzing. Like insects.”

“Bugs, huh? Like giant mosquitoes?” Dean elbows Sam in the side, getting a small snort in return. “C’mon, let’s head back for lunch. Get you some grilled cheese and a nap.” 

~~~

Sleeping for two hours only seems to make the dark circles under Sam’s eyes worse. Dean suggests Sam take it easy on the porch, get some fresh air, maybe read a few of the books that they don’t have in the Bunker library, while he sorts through some of the fishing equipment they brought. Sam doesn’t argue or respond but wanders listlessly to the bookshelves and pulls a volume down without a glance at the spine. He sits on the porch swing and holds it in his lap, looking out at the lake. The weather has turned cooler and a breeze ruffles Sam’s hair.

Dean hesitates for a moment before he pulls the old quilt off the bed, dragging it out to Sam. “Here, stay warm, okay? Don’t want you coming down with something.”

Sam shakes his head and gives a half-smile before taking it and wrapping up his legs and torso. “How’s that, mom?”

Dean gives a fond eye-roll at the joke before he heads down the steps. The fishing pole and kit are in the trunk of the Impala and he fusses with them a few extra minutes so he can watch Sam from behind the trunk. When Sam opens the book and starts to read, Dean makes his move to take out the gear and stuff a few of the beers in the green cooler into his jacket pockets.

“See you in a few hours,” Dean says over his shoulder and Sam gives a distracted wave, already engrossed.

It’s a short walk down to the lake. Most of the beach is covered in grey pebbles but he spots a few boulders a little farther down where he can sit. The water is dark blue and glassy. He doesn’t see any fish below the surface and in some ways, it doesn’t matter. He walks to the tree line where the grass grows and digs a hole a few inches deep, finding a few worms in the rich earth there.

Settled on the rock, he baits the hook and tries to breathe. He glances at the dark woods behind him and feels an unwanted spike of adrenaline--the need to run and fight, monsters waiting around every deadfall and river’s bend, the need to survive--and he shoves the memories of Purgatory down to focus on the gentle sun on his shoulders. No tugs on the line yet and his mind wanders, making mental lists of supplies they need when they get back, how Sam needs a new suit since his coat was ripped on the last hunt. They should probably look through all the books on the shelves here, see if anything would make a good addition to the bunker library. 

Sam’s pale face this morning makes him wonder if his brother’s caught something on the way up and he makes a mental note to pick up some cold medicine on their way home.

His fishing line bobs up and down once and then it yanks down more firmly.

~~~

When Dean walks up to the cabin, Sam’s not moving. The blanket has fallen off his lap to the ground and his head hangs down, hair covering his face. A spurt of panic hits Dean as he jogs up the stairs and shakes Sam by the shoulder. His brother’s head snaps up and he looks confused until he sees Dean’s face. “What?”

“Scared me, Sam. Can’t have you dying on vacation,” Dean says. The joke must work because Sam gives him an irritated smile.

“Then you’d have to haul my ass all the way back to Kansas.” Dean’s hand is still on Sam’s shoulder and he shakes it off. “I’m fine. You catch anything?”

Dean holds up the two walleyes strung on a fishing line. “No canned chili for us tonight.”

~~~

Sam is standing in the cabin doorway in his t-shirt and boxers when Dean wakes up at 1 a.m. “What are you doing, Sam?”

The words coming out of Sam’s mouth are an unintelligible mumble but said with some urgency to the open door as Dean sidles up to him. Sam turns away from the door and the concern on his face has Dean wondering what he sees out there in the dark.

“It talks” is the phrase that Sam seems to repeat and the hair on the back of Dean’s neck goes up. He looks outside but there’s just darkness and the distant sound of the lake water lapping against the shore. When Sam was ten, he sleepwalked some. Never a full escape out the motel room door but there were a few close calls. Now twenty years later, Sam looks just as lost as he did as a kid. He pulls Sam back inside and shuts the door.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get right on that,” he says as Sam continues to jabber. He guides Sam back to the bed and laughs when Sam drops like a stone onto the sheets. “Been a while since you did that, little brother.”

Dean pulls the covers up and brushes the hair back from Sam’s face. He climbs in the bed and watches Sam’s profile, how his breath passes through his open lips and his chest rises and falls gently. 

Sleep doesn’t come easy after that. Dean gets up again and wanders restlessly into the kitchen. There’s still coffee in the pot but it’s bitter and cold so he puts it on top of the stove to heat up. As he waits, he spots the brown leather book on the desk again. He scoops it up and sits in an old armchair that’s seen better days. 

_Let’s see what these old guys did with the snake monster_, he thinks. The book falls open to a different page with an ornate sketch of an iron box. Rectangular, like a coffin, with sigils on the top and sides but not anything that Dean has seen before. The description below the drawing mentions the use of iron and includes a spell that would seal the contents inside.

_June 28, 1921 _

_Summer solstice and today we bury the snake._

_Our efforts are not without controversy. Can we contain a creature that is unkillable? Put it somewhere no one will stumble across it? This is not some common entity that can be sequestered like a cursed object. Apophis, as some of the Letters refer to the creature, is sentient and malicious. It will find a way to seek release, but isolation combined with a large body of water nearby seems the best solution for containment._

_Footnote: Our efforts at burial took longer than expected as the noise from inside the box was disturbing to both Elias and James. I stepped in to help but lacked their strength. We did finish the ceremony and accomplished our task before midnight._

_~James Davis III, New York chapterhouse_

Below the footnote in the journal, there is a sketch of the lake and woods that shows a trail from the cabin that leads about a half-mile northwest. The description below the drawing describes a clearing with five pines in a circle, each tree etched with protection sigils, that surround the burial site.

Dean shuts the journal. _Great_, _even in the middle of nowhere we can’t escape some dick monster making trouble_. If it’s buried out in the woods, they should try to track it down, make sure Apophis, the snake or whatever it’s called, is undisturbed. He pulls his cell phone out, about to punch in Bobby’s speed dial, before he catches himself. Even if they had service up here, they don’t have Bobby anymore. This is the kind of thing that the old man would know or if he didn’t, Bobby was always a phone call or a library book away from finding out more. At times like this, it would have been great to have their grandfather Henry around. Someone else to rely on. Instead, it’s just the two of them. In some ways, it’s always just been the two of them.

He lays his phone and the journal on the desk and crawls back into bed, spooning up behind Sam. His brother throws off a lot of warmth and despite the added heat from the stove, he snuggles in closer, his nose buried in Sam’s neck. Sam shifts and mumbles back over his shoulder and Dean hugs him tight from behind until they both fall asleep.

~~~

Dean dreams of yellow eyes and a cabin in the woods. He is pinned against a rough wood wall, his ribs being slowly crushed and the air squeezed out of him, but it’s not Azazel wearing Dad—instead, it’s Sam holding him with nothing more than the steady gaze of glowing yellow eyes. Sam’s pupils shrink to twin slits, vertical, animalistic, and Dean bolts awake. 

The other side of the bed is empty and the sheets are cold. Dean glances towards the kitchen and then around the corner to the bathroom but Sam is nowhere to be seen in the dark rooms.

“Sam?” 

He pulls his sweatpants on from where they fell on the floor last night and yanks his t-shirt off the back of a nearby chair.

The front door to the cabin swings opens easily, not bolted like it was last night when he brought Sam back to bed. Dean hopes to find Sam curled up in one of the wool blankets on the porch swing, watching the lake, lanky limbs folded up against his chest, a faraway look on his face. But the porch is empty. 

On the dirt driveway, the Impala sits in the same spot they left her two days before. Dean puts his hands on his hips and listens. Water laps against the lakeshore and the gravel there is shiny wet. If Sam was walking along the water’s edge, Dean would hear the noise all the way around the lake, echoing off the water and rocks. Instead, the night air is thick as if the cabin and the woods are wrapped tightly under a wool blanket of stars; even the owls are asleep tonight. 

“Sammy, where are you?” he mutters.

Dean reaches back into the cabin to grab his jacket from inside the doorway and pulls up short when he notices Sam’s jacket hanging on the wooden peg next to it. He snatches up his boots, shoves his feet into them and heads outside.

It’s cold at night so Sam can’t be far, he thinks as he shrugs into his jacket and grabs a flashlight. Problem is the cabin is so remote and the forest and lake so big that it feels like Sam could be on the other side of the moon.

Dean blows out a breath, searching the horizon and its reflection on the glassy waters. That’s when he sees it—a glowing light back in the distant trees that reflects back on the water—and then goes dark again. 

Sam stumbles out of the woods.

“Sam, what the--?” 

Sam doesn’t seem to hear him and shambles back and forth across the grassy edge of the treeline. Dean runs down the steps and switches on his flashlight. The beam sweeps over Sam’s bare feet and the dirty edge of his jeans and Dean’s breath catches before he runs faster to grab Sam as he trips and stumbles to the ground.

He pulls Sam’s face up between his palms. His skin is cold and his eyes are heavy-lidded and in the moonlight, Sam’s pupil contracts to a slit. He pushes away and staggers a few steps towards the lake. 

“Atlaq sarahi,” Sam says and Dean grabs Sam by the elbow and yanks back. He looks in Sam’s eyes again, and the pupils are normal.

“What the--” Dean looks off into the fringe of dark trees but no threat emerges. Dean pulls Sam into a standing position and he struggles to walk them both up the cabin steps and through the open door. Dean lays him on the couch and runs back to shut the door. He glances out at the woods again. This time he is struck by the silence. There are always birds and bats and other animals making noise in the woods, but this place is deadly quiet.

A thump gets his attention; Sam has fallen off the couch and onto his hands and knees. He starts to crawl across the braided rug, his hair hanging in his face.

“Atlaq sarahi,” Sam says more clearly and with a good deal of frustration.

“Sam, snap out of it.” Dean shakes his shoulder and pushes him to sit up with his back against the couch. He slaps Sam’s cheek hard and at last, Sam’s eyes snap open with a clear look. 

“What?” Sam struggles upright and his forehead crinkles as he focuses on Dean’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Dirt is streaked on Sam’s face as if he were digging graves all night and Dean wipes a thumb across it but it only smears more and he gives an unsteady smile to Sam’s question. “You were sleepwalking again.”

“I was?” He looks at Dean skeptically then notices his wet jeans and filthy feet. “Huh.”

“C’mon, let’s get you out of these clothes and hose you off.” Sam pulls himself up with Dean’s help and then weaves in place until Dean places a steady hand on his shoulder to keep him upright. “It’s gonna be fine.”

~~~

As soon as Sam is holding his own in the shower, Dean goes into action, laying salt lines at the windows and door. He takes a big red marker out of their bag and draws sigils on the windows and walls, general protection stuff since he doesn’t know what they’re up against. Must be the snake monster from the journal, he thinks, no way that’s a coincidence. He checks the windows once more to make sure they are secure. As he spots the Impala again, there’s an overwhelming desire to bundle up Sam and get the hell out of there. One part of Dean, the big brother, wants to take Sam from this place and figure out a game plan later and the other part, the hunter in him, knows that they can’t leave without checking it out.

As he sets a silver knife and a shotgun loaded with rock salt on the table, muffled noises come from behind the bathroom door. He walks over, leaning close to listen.

“You okay in there?” There’s a pause and then Sam’s voice over the water. “Yeah, out in a minute.”

His mind races over what happened before he went to sleep. Sam was restless again, complained of a headache and went out on the porch for fresh air. The day had been uneventful.

He can’t help himself and opens the front door again, stepping carefully over the salt line. There’s a line of blush pink along the horizon that’s starting to bleed into the inky sky as dawn approaches. He holds still and listens again. Still nothing. Just empty air. A chill runs up his spine, he steps back in and bolts the door.

“What are you doing?” Sam asks, his voice tired and rough, as he towels off his hair and then wraps the towel around his hips. Sam walks gingerly over to the bed and with the dirt washed off, Dean sees the cuts and bruises that cover Sam’s feet. His eyes meet Dean’s.

“Better question is what were _you_ doing,” Dean responds, crossing his arms across his chest. “Middle of the night and you decide to what? Take a hike in the woods?”

“I don’t know.” Sam closes his eyes and his shoulders sag as he exhales. “I was sitting on the porch when I heard these noises—“

“What kind of noises?”

Sam’s cheeks turn red and he opens his eyes. “Sounded like static at first. A buzzing sound that I heard all afternoon. Bugs. But then last night, it sounded more like whispers.”

“You were hearing voices and didn’t tell me?” 

“There was no time,” Sam says, his voice slowing down. “Last thing I remember was sitting on the porch and the voice was repeating the same thing.” 

Dean waits for Sam to continue but Sam’s eyes flutter closed and the dark smudges underneath them look like bruises. Sam slips off the edge of the mattress and Dean catches his shoulder, easing him back on the bed where he falls back and slips over on his stomach. Dean shakes Sam’s shoulder and Sam makes a hmmm noise.

“Sam, what did the voices say?”

“Atlaq sarahi,” Sam mumbles. “Release me.”

~~~

Dean doesn’t go back to sleep. He walks into the woods at dawn. Sam hasn’t moved from where he passed out the night before. Dean isn’t sure about leaving his brother at the cabin and he doesn’t want him out in the woods again so he leaves a note for Sam to stay put and grabs the Men of Letters book from the table.

The pines are thick and green with ferns and shrubs growing under their canopy. It’s damp and earthy-smelling and the morning sun filters through in spots. Compared to last night and the nothingness that came from this place, he hears birds chirping and at one point, a marten or weasel sticks its long neck out of the underbrush to watch him before scampering away. He takes a deep breath. It’s a far cry from the washed-out woods and vicious monsters of Purgatory last year. Whatever this monster is, he can handle it. They can handle it.

There’s no clear path that leads in but he can see where grass has been trampled and twigs have been snapped. It follows along the same general path as the Letters’ map to where a monster was buried eighty years ago. 

He wanders through the area and looks for the carved sigils and the circle of trees mentioned in the journal. Five of them surround the burial site; the sigils carved into the bark are facing inward and add a layer of warding. Given Sam’s state last night, there should be obvious signs of what he was doing out here but two hours later, Dean hasn’t found anything.

In his frustration, he sits on a fallen tree in a patch of light and reads through the book again. Dean knows he’s followed the path outlined but instead he is walking around in circles. A passage catches his eye about people who are open and vulnerable. But open to what--possession? Sam has had his share with Meg and Lucifer, he thinks as he shuts the book and trudges through the undergrowth towards the cabin. Perhaps that kind of possession leaves the door open to this kind of monster. Or maybe it’s a link back to Sam’s psychic abilities? Both would explain why Dean hasn’t been affected.

He steps out of the shaded forest into the bright noon sun and starts the walk back to the cabin.

~~~

“What do you mean, I’m not allowed outside?” Sam says. “C’mon. If there really is something out there, we can cover more ground together.”

Dean refills his water bottle and puts it back in the small duffle along with a shotgun and extra salt rounds, an iron crowbar, a camping shovel. He zips it and tosses the duffle strap over his shoulder. “No. Whatever this thing is, you need to stay away from it.”

Sam grunts in frustration and Dean turns around. “I’m not kidding, Sam. It preys on people like you.”

“People like me?” Sam says, screwing his face up into more emotion than Dean’s seen in months. “Is that how you still think of me? As some kind of freak?”

“What? I don’t think of you like that,” Dean says.

Sam nods absently, the wheels inside his head grinding on some kind of grist, while he pulls out their duffels and begins to pack half-heartedly. Dean lets his head drop.

“Fine. You’re right - we’ll cover more ground together,” he says. “But we need to stick together, okay?”

Sam stops packing. “Sounds good.”

~~~

The afternoon isn’t any more productive than the morning was. Dean finds that reassuring. Despite Sam’s dramatic appearance last night at the wood’s edge and his sleepwalking and talking, there are no traces of a monster running around out here. He glances over at Sam who is sweeping through some ferns about twenty yards away. Now that they’re focused on the monster the Men of Letters buried out here, Sam is intense and all signs of his exhaustion are gone. Dean brushes aside a few low-hanging branches on a pine tree and checks the bark for sigils. It’s been eighty years since the Men of Letters carved them into the trees and buried Apophis. The bark could have grown over them or the trees have fallen or perhaps the warding is still working. Regardless of the reason, they’ve followed the map and instructions from the journal and have found nothing. 

“You think the warding is throwing off a glamour somehow, Sam?” he shouts over his shoulder. “We could be right on top of it and not know? Man, these nerds had a few tricks up their sleeve.” 

He can’t hear Sam moving on his right anymore and glances over to see nothing but green pines and ferns. Once again there are no birds or animal noises in the surrounding woods and Dean gets goosebumps. “Sammy?” Dean pushes through to a clearing where the sun breaks through. It looks just like the clearing he saw twenty minutes ago, and his frustration builds. Circles. He’s going in circles. And now he’s lost his brother. “Sam! Where are you?” 

Turning around to orient himself, the root of a tree snags his foot. Before he realizes it, Dean is falling and ends up face down on the forest floor. A sharp pain shoots from his ankle to his knee as he tries to sit up.

“Dean!” Sam’s concerned face looms over him and he’s irritated at how Sam got there so fast. “You okay?”

The knee twinges again and Dean grimaces, shooting a look at Sam. “No, I’m not okay. Where the hell were you?” 

“I was right behind you.” Sam extends his hand and Dean pulls himself up. His ankle hurts like a son of a bitch, probably twisted, and he can’t put any real weight on it. Sam slings Dean’s arm over his neck and grips him around the waist. “Gotta get you back and take a look at this.”

“I’m fine,” Dean says and looks around one last time at the forest. It’s quiet as they make their way through the trees, the only noise their boots scuffing along through the sticks and pine cones on the ground and the silence gnaws at him.

~~~

It takes time for them to get back to the cabin. The sun is hanging low in the sky as it does in fall this far north. Sam walks Dean up the steps and then lays him down on the bed before digging out their first aid kit for bandages and Tylenol. Sam gently rolls up the leg of Dean’s jeans. The ankle is already swelling and the knee is a deep blue-red color and bound to form a spectacular bruise. He cringes as Sam cradles his leg in his lap, probing the knee cap with his thumbs. 

“Nothing is broken as far as I can tell,” Sam says. “But let’s get some ice on it. Need help getting your pants off?”

Dean glares at him and Sam raises his hands in surrender and walks over to the green cooler in the kitchen to scoop some melting ice into a dishtowel.

“We should leave,” Dean says.

“What?” Sam turns around.

“Now. We should go.”

Sam ties off the ends of the towel and kneels down to set the ice pack on Dean’s ankle. “It’s already getting late and you need to stay off that foot for now.”

“Sam, you can’t stay another night here,” he says. “There’s no sign that this Apophis or whatever has gotten out of his box so I say we head for the Bunker right now and let sleeping snakes lie.”

Sam settles back on his heels and shakes his head. “I’m fine, Dean, really. I feel a lot better than I did yesterday and you are in no shape for driving. I’ll pack the car tonight and we’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning.” When Dean shakes his head no, Sam keeps going. “You said it yourself - if the monster’s still buried, then we don’t need to worry about it. I’ll lock the doors and put up the sigils. No more sleepwalking tonight.”

“We could cuff you to the bed,” Dean says hopefully and Sam snorts as he stands up.

“Maybe next time.”

~~~

Dean wakes up. It’s 4 a.m. and Sam is gone again.

“Fuck!” He jumps out of bed, cursing again as he lands on his sore ankle hard.

It’s a replay of the night before--an empty bed and an open door--and Dean feels a spike of adrenaline as he throws his clothes on. He shuffles over to the table, grabbing the shotgun and loading a few salt rounds before throwing the rest of their weapons duffel over his shoulder. His ankle feels better than last night, the ice made the swelling go down and it’s still sore but good enough to hobble into the woods. His eyes adjust quickly to the darkness, one perk of his time in Purgatory, so he’s able to dodge the trees and undergrowth. A few minutes in, he hears the sound of a shovel hitting dirt again and again and he follows it.

He can’t see Sam yet but he knows he’s in the right place when he sees the glow of the sigils surrounding the burial area. The shoveling sound continues and there is another noise underneath it. He inches quietly towards the edge of the pit and readies the shotgun. 

It doesn’t have the sharp rectangular edges and neat piles of dirt like their usual grave digging but wildly thrown shovelfuls of dirt like an animal burrowing down. Resting at the center of the destruction is a large iron box--a rusty sarcophagus with sigils on its top and sides--that is halfway unburied.

“Dean.”

He looks up from the box and Sam is staring up at him, the shovel dangling at his side and dirt streaks across his forehead and cheeks. In the quiet between them, Dean can hear the other noise, something slithering against the metal of the box. Something big. 

“Whatcha doing, Sam?” he says, keeping his voice and the shotgun level.

Sam smiles up at him and his white teeth shine brightly in the dark. The ear-to-ear grin shakes Dean, so unlike the quiet smiles of his brother. Sam breaks the two locks on the box with the edge of the shovel and throws it to the side. He places his palms on top of the box and his eyes begin to fill with an amber-gold color that lights up the pit around him. “Glad you could join us.”

The slithering noise gets louder and the glyphs on the box glow with the same sick color as Sam’s eyes.

“Sam, why don’t you climb out of there and we can talk.” The smile doesn’t change and the skin-against-skin sound coming from inside the box makes Dean sick to his stomach. “Here’s an idea. I’ll trade places with you. Give you a break from all that digging.” 

“You aren’t one of us.” Sam cocks his head and doesn’t move. “You aren’t open like your brother.”

“Us? Who are you exactly?” 

“Chaos. The Serpent. We are many.” As Sam speaks, the box beneath his hands rattles and the slithering is loud and agitated. The thing nods at the sawed-off shotgun in Dean’s other hand. “People have tried to kill me but I am forever. Your brother will become part of me, my next vessel. It’s an honor.”

As it speaks, sweat runs down Sam’s dirt-streaked face. His hands are blistered and bloody from the shoveling. Despite the bright glow in his eyes, Sam looks exhausted, about to drop to the ground. 

“Yeah, see I can’t allow that.”

Using Sam’s big hands, the being grabs the heavy lid of the box and begins to push it back with a noise as dry and rusty as an old barn door, to open a dark corner. A scaly snakehead winds its way out of the box, waving as if smelling the air and then it tests the edges of the iron lid gently. When it turns towards him in the moonlight, Dean can see the glint of dark beady eyes on its head and the flick of a tongue. The creature may talk big and it’s powerful enough to control Sam but it’s small as a garden snake. Maybe the Men of Letters exaggerated. Maybe they’ll get a lucky break.

In its exploration of the box lid, the snake encounters Sam’s fingers and it begins to wind itself around Sam’s wrist, holding onto him tightly. Dean jumps into the pit and staggers as pain shoots up his leg. The snake’s head turns to watch Dean as he grabs the machete from his bag. 

_Let’s chop this little bitch to bits and stuff him back in the box_, Dean thinks when a second snakehead emerges from the corner of the box. This one is larger with a diamond pattern on its skin. The larger one rubs noses briefly with the smaller one before it crawls its way down the side of the box. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says and throws down the blade, grabbing the shotgun instead. 

Sam hums as the bigger snakehead rubs against his bare ankle and starts to twine around his leg, slipping up the wet denim like a living vine, slotting between Sam’s legs to rub over his crotch before winding around his waist while a third tentacle pushes its way out of the box and slides up Sam’s chest to caress his jawline. Dean watches in horror as it makes a pass over Sam’s bottom lip before probing between Sam’s teeth while the other tentacle begins to wrap around his throat. The glow in Sam’s eyes intensifies.

“Enough of that,” Dean says and takes aim.

“You won’t kill your—“ 

The shotgun blast is loud in the quiet forest and the salt round hits Sam in the chest with its full force, knocking him back from the box. The creature screeches in pain and the three tentacles drop their hold and retreat under the lid. Dean runs over to Sam, who is lying motionless on the dirt.

“Sorry, Sammy,” he says as he sets the shotgun to the side and shakes Sam until his eyes flutter open, dark and normal. Dean runs his hands over Sam’s overshirt and t-shirt which are shredded by the rock salt Dean fired. The wounds aren’t serious but they’ll hurt like a bitch and leave some bruising.

“Dean?” Sam gasps as Dean pulls him into a seated position. “What the hell happened?”

“Tell you later. Right now, we need to get away from Medusa here.”

A rusty scrape draws his attention back to the box where the largest of the tentacles, its skin shredded in spots from the shotgun blast, is trying to slide back the lid even more. This close up, Dean can see its scales clearly and that the pattern on its skin flickers between black and green and gold. The tip of a fourth tentacle wiggles its way up between the others and like the others, Dean can see its black eyes and forked tongue flicking in and out. The sound of slithering intensifies as he watches the lid move over another inch. Sam looks like he’s about to throw up and Dean shoves him away. “Go, you can’t be here.”

The tentacles squirm and try to squeeze out of the box while the largest continues to do the hard work, pushing against the stone lid. Dean grabs the machete again and aims for the thickest one. The blade cuts through it with effort like it’s a thick piece of steak and Dean has to yank hard before the chopped tip falls back in the box and angry shrieking echoes inside its iron walls.

“Dean, watch out,” Sam shouts behind him.

Two smaller tentacles have made their way down the metal side, moving fast to wrap around his ankles. They yank hard and he lands on his back with a grunt. Awkwardly, he tries to hack at them from this position but the things are now compressing around his lower legs and ankles.

Another loud blast sounds over his head and the pressure on his legs eases. Dean looks back to see Sam standing behind him with the smoking sawed-off. The two ragged tentacles dangle over the box from where Sam shredded it to pieces.

“How do we kill it?” Sam asks. He gives Dean a hand up and flinches in pain from where the rock salt peppered his chest.

“We don’t,” Dean says, hopping on his bad ankle. “We need to chop it up and stuff it back in the box.”

“Take this,” Sam says and shoves the shotgun into Dean’s hands. He’s blinking hard and there’s a flash of amber. The dream of Azazel, those alien eyes, paralyzes Dean as Sam backs away from him. “I can’t. It’s in my head again.”

Dean scrambles over to the box, firing an angry shot into the opening. The screeching intensifies and it makes him grab his ears, the shotgun dropping to the ground. Nearby, Sam is curled up in pain, unable to move. When it eases up a second later, Dean snatches up the gun again. 

“Wait!” Sam cries out. “It’s like a Hydra. Every time we hurt it, it forms more heads.”

Dean tries to see into the dark box. The screeching has stopped but the slithering noise is louder than before as the shadows shift inside. He can’t get Sam far enough away right now to break the connection without the creature escaping the box. _When in doubt,_ he thinks and reaches inside the duffel again. He digs out the salt canister and a plastic squeeze bottle filled with gasoline. He has no idea if a salt-and-burn will work; he just needs it to hurt this thing long enough to bury it again.

Another big tentacle is back prodding at the iron lid again, gripping the edge and inching it over. Dean’s able to douse its scales with gas and splash some inside the box before the thing throws off the lid at last. The snakehead rears up taller than Dean this time, the two black eyes looking down at him as he lights the match. Before he can toss it, the tentacle swings around like a whip and knocks him off his feet. The back of his head collides with a rock and when he looks back at the box again, the writhing cluster of tentacles pulls itself onto the ground. All the snakeheads squirm, weaving in the air before they begin to reform, growing taller. The multitude wind around each other, forming legs and arms and a torso--a gross approximation of a body--and at the top, there is a head without a face. 

The writhing body ignores Dean at its feet and turns its head towards Sam across the pit. It staggers forward, slow and jerky like the zombies they’ve hunted. Sam’s eyes are wide and white-rimmed even in the dark but his face is slack as he looks up at the thing. 

“Sam! Get out of here!”

Dean tries to grab one of its legs as it passes but when his hand lands on its cool skin, the snake bodies that form the limb slither apart and pull out of his grasp. He watches in disgust as they squirm back into place with the others out of his reach. Underneath the slithering sound, there is a murmuring, excited and alien, and his brother looks frozen in place like a rabbit, compelled not to run but to listen and be consumed. Dean tries to stand but his bad ankle causes him to stumble to his knees. “Sammy!”

The thing reaches one arm out to Sam, a mimic of how Sam helped his brother up moments before. Sam reaches out but instead of pulling him up, the arm unwinds into five tentacles, each bobbing and striking independently. As Dean shouts and crawls over the dirt, the tentacles climb Sam’s arm, enveloping it. One of the snakeheads wraps around Sam’s neck holding him in place while another prods at his mouth again. When it finally opens, the thing slides inside. Its body begins to unravel and more and more of them enter Sam, his throat widening and swallowing, until the last bit seems to dissolve like smoke. Sam closes his eyes and when they open again, the amber glow is strong enough to light up the pit. He cricks his neck to the side and smiles as he runs his hands down Sam’s torso. Dean’s head throbs with a bright pain as he grabs the shotgun again but he isn’t quick enough as Sam scrambles up the sides of the pit and then disappears over the top. 

He grabs some extra shells from the bag and loads the gun before he unsteadily climbs up the slope. In the quiet of the night, he can hear Sam crashing through the trees and undergrowth up ahead and he stumbles behind following the sounds. His heart stops when the sounds stop but he keeps moving in the same direction until he comes out of the woods by the lake.

The boulders that he fished off are in front of him and the water shines beyond them, its placid surface reflecting back the moon and stars like a mirror.

Sam stands on the top of the boulders where Dean sat yesterday, scouting out the area. Sam’s shoulders rise and fall as if he’s taking a deep breath. _Probably getting used to his new meat suit_, Dean thinks. _Well, don’t get too comfy_. He brings the shotgun up to his shoulder and walks towards Sam. The gravel under his feet crunches, giving away his approach.

Sam turns around, his eyes still glowing with that sickly amber-gold color, and he yanks his head down at the same unnatural angle as he considers Dean. “All I want is to be free. You must understand that. Your brother knows. He wants the same. We are the same.” 

“Bullshit. Let Sam go and we can talk,” Dean says. 

“And if I don’t?” Sam smiles but Dean can see the creature behind the show of teeth. “Nothing you can do. But you won’t give up, will you?” It spreads its arms and waits, staring at him.

Dean fires the shotgun again and the sound is loud and brittle as it echoes off the water. Sam’s body flies backward off the rocks. The moment happens in slow motion for Dean with Sam’s hair flying forward and the look of surprise and pain on his face as he disappears over the edge.

“Sam!” Dean runs up the rock and over to the edge. There’s a ripple below him and a glimpse of white hands reaching for him before they are swallowed up by the dark water. “Shit, shit.” He tosses the shotgun to the side and dives in.

He can’t see much in the churning dark water at first and pushes himself further down until he sees arms and legs thrashing below him. Sam is pulling at his throat; he’s not swimming but jerking in spasms. Dean grabs one of his elbows and pulls him upward but Sam fights him, his panic making him blind. As Sam’s face turns towards him, Dean sees a dark trail pouring like motor oil from Sam’s mouth, twisting around his throat. One last piece oozes out, escaping into the lake and slithering away from them into the dark. Sam goes limp and his weight drags both of them down deeper into the water. Dean re-adjusts his grip under Sam’s armpits. He looks up and kicks for the surface.

As they break the surface, Dean gasping with Sam hanging like a dead weight in his arms, adrenaline has Dean kicking for shore. Their feet aren’t even out of the water before he lays Sam down and rolls him onto his back, resting a hand on Sam’s chest where his shirt has been shredded from the two shotgun blasts tonight. He tries to gauge any movement or breath and then starts to do CPR when Sam spits up water and his eyes open wildly, unseeing.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” he says and rolls him up on his side. As Sam coughs and sputters, Dean looks around behind him. The surface of the lake shows ripples from where they swam out but no movement otherwise. He pulls Sam up to a sitting position and thumps his back. 

“Dean?” Sam croaks out. “What happened?”

“Let’s get you out of here,” he says and yanks Sam up on his feet. 

“Okay,” Sam says, his voice still a wreck. They stand in silence for a moment, only the drip of water from their clothes and hair making noise, as they watch the water’s surface for any signs. The lake surface doesn’t change and the ripples have died as Dean moves them towards the cabin.

“Is it gone?” Sam says. 

“Maybe,” Dean says as Sam stumbles along beside him. “It was talking about release. This thing wants to get out into the world. Can it do that without a body? Crawl along on its belly?”

Sam shrugs. “Probably not as fast as it would like.”

“Which means it’s probably coming back for you.”

Sam coughs roughly and trips again as Dean picks up the pace. 

“If that’s the case, we catch it back at the cabin.”

~~~

Sam is flipping through the journal, studying the maps, as Dean walks through the cabin again - salt, weapons and warding are all in place. It doesn’t feel any safer.

“When you said that I was vulnerable to this thing, I thought it was because of where my head was at recently.” Sam laughs bitterly, closing the book. “Didn’t think that it had to do with me being psychic. That was years ago.”

“Wait. What do you mean - where your head’s been at?”

Sam’s smile falters. “You know what I mean.”

“That’s all in the past,” Dean says as if that puts an end to it. He walks over and opens the front door and brushes away the salt line with the toe of his shoe. “Time to play bait.”

“I’ve been thinking and you were right yesterday. We could leave. Right now.” They look at each other across the room, Dean in disbelief and Sam in defiance, and the moment hangs intensely between them.

“With a monster on the loose?” Dean says. “I thought you were done with walking away from hunting.”

He knows it’s a cheap shot, digging at an old wound that they’ve been trying to let heal. When Sam shrugs it off, he’s not sure if he’s relieved or not. Sam walks over to the doorway and stands side by side with him. 

“I can’t feel it anymore. No buzzing, no voices. All signs point to this thing being dead or long gone.”

Dean studies Sam’s face. An hour ago, his brother was possessed, exhausted, and almost drowned. Now he looks normal, in fact, better than he has in two days. He shakes his head and scans the lake and the woods again. 

“When is it ever that easy for us?” he asks.

“Sometimes we catch a break,” Sam says. “Seriously, let’s get out of here. Think I’m done with vacation and the woods.” Without a second look at Dean, Sam moves to the bed and begins to load up their duffels as if the decision’s already been made.

“Something doesn’t feel right, Sammy.”

His brother pauses to look out the window, a dirty t-shirt in his hand, and hunches his shoulders in concentration, listening. A minute goes by and Dean waits, hoping for an answer. Finally, Sam drops his shoulders and turns back to face him. 

“It’s not out there. I would know.”

~~~

It’s easy to put the cabin back the way they found it. No one would know the difference but that’s the way they were brought up—leave it clean for the next people. Dean pokes at the logs inside the stove and gets them to burn down to embers while Sam boxes up their groceries. When Sam moves to take the boxes out to the car, Dean stops him.

“Not alone.”

Sam gets tight-lipped but lets it pass and waits as Dean grabs their duffels, jostling two over his shoulder. They walk out together as the sun starts to peek out over the tree line. For the first time, Dean notices that beyond the lake, the pines stretch for miles, dipping and climbing the misty hills in the distance. The openness gives him a moment of vertigo, his stomach rolling uncomfortably. 

If Apophis is still alive, he could be anywhere out there and they would never know.

“Hey, let’s get going.” The trunk is open and Sam stands next to the passenger door. He smiles and tosses the duffels in.

“You okay?”

Sam smiles and that flash of teeth does nothing to settle Dean’s stomach. “I’m good. Really good.”

And that’s enough for Dean in the end. They may not have won this round but Sam is okay and they’re heading back to their home. He can worry about this another time.

~~~

Sam watches as Dean climbs in and starts up the car but he makes no move to get in. He glances back at the trail into the woods and then at the cabin door and his smile broadens in satisfaction. He is leaving this prison, heading back to a world full of people, a world he recognizes, and he is hungry for it.

The cuff of his jacket moves as a small green snakehead pokes its way through. It looks up at him, its thin forked tongue flicking out briefly before Sam tucks it back in.

“Soon, we’ll be back soon,” he says softly.

“What was that?” Dean asks as he slides into the passenger seat. 

“How soon will we get back home?” 

“Twenty hours or so. Maybe we could stop at that diner outside Chicago. Best chili cheese dogs ever.”

Sam smiles broadly. “Sounds good to me.”


End file.
